Page 35 of When the Laird Conquers

“If ye daenae want me to gouge yer eyes out, ye’ll leave,” Gordon shot back, his voice a thunderous growl. “Now!”

The man paled and whirled around without delay, almost running back into the trees.

Agnes didn’t think Keith had seen anything, but the anger in Gordon’s eyes made her wonder if she was about to be berated for her mistake.

What does it matter to him anyway?

If she was his real betrothed, she could understand it, but this was all a pretense. She was the one who should feel angry to be intruded on while she was merely trying to rescue a poor creature.

“And ye…” Gordon rasped as he took a step back, his gaze roving over her, looking her up and down, taking her in.

She swallowed thickly, her skin hot despite the cold.

At least Keith’s potential glimpse of her would have been an accident. But this… this was outright staring, deliberate and leisurely. Where she came from, such audacity would have warranted a duel to spare her honor, but she supposed she wasn’t in England anymore.

That was the whole point.

Any complaint that burned within her was doused into hissing shock as Gordon suddenly reached for his belt.

What is he doing?

She could not muster the words to ask out loud, her throat tight as he unbuckled his belt. A long shirt reached to the middle of his powerful thighs, though she thought she glimpsed something behind the thick white fabric: the part of a man that she knew absolutely nothing about, other than the secrets that Christine had mentioned in her journals.

Looking away quickly, her face aflame, she feared what he might do… and anticipated it in the same breath.

So, it was rather a surprise when he stepped close to her and draped the woolen plaid around her shoulders, his hands crossing the material over her front and holding it closed over the figure he had been intently admiring not a moment ago.

Breathless, she peered up at him. He was so very close, probably too close, his breath coming in ragged bursts that stirred a strange, pulling sensation in the pit of her stomach.

As they gazed at each other, he leaned in, as if drawn to the look in her eyes. And though she knew she should turn away or step back, she found she had no control over herself, her head tilting up as he leaned closer still.

Does he mean to… kiss me?

A thrill shivered through her, and she felt herself rise onto her tiptoes.

Gordon stopped just short of the point of no return, his gaze dropping to her chest, where the little fox cub had begun to wriggle in her arms, trying to force its small head out of the heavy plaid.

“New rule,” he said gruffly, his eyes flashing with a threat as he returned them to her nervous gaze. “If another man ever sees ye like this, I’ll kill him.”

“I don’t think he saw anything,” she replied, finding her voice. “If he did, it was not on purpose. And… And we are not really betrothed, so why do you care?”

He tugged her closer, his hand tightening on the plaid. “Real or nae,” he told her thickly, “ye’re mine as long as ye’re under me protection. If anyone else sees so much as a glimpse of what I’ve just seen, I’ll put out their eyes and then kill them. And when I’m done, I’ll add them to me collection in the tower.”

She shuddered inside the warmth of the borrowed plaid, her mind conjuring a vision of the wooden door from her dream and the fear of what might be behind it.

Surely, he was just toying with her. He wouldn’t really do those things, would he?

“Scared yet, me Lady?” he asked, a smirk on his lips.

Oh…

She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to be able to see those lips, nor had she realized just what a difference it made. There was an expression in his mouth that his beard had hidden, like a mask that he had now lifted.

I think he is toying with me.

Perhaps not about the threat, but almost certainly about the ‘collection in the tower.’ At least, she hoped it was just a jest.

“I…”